The Herd has UM as a 9 win team

Love him or hate him, Colin Cowherd is usually fairly decent when it comes to college football predictions (or so it seems that way). He has 4 teams he feels that Vegas got wrong on the projected win totals. One of them is UM. Vegas has UM at 7 and the Herd has them at 9... take it for what it's worth...

The thing about Cowherd though is he'll be the first to tell you that he is 100% entertainment. I respect that he is self aware of the fact that he is not there to be an authority on sports but rather to choose topics that drive ratings.

I usually enjoy listening to Cowherd too. However, once I was driving through the mountains in the middle of nowhere and the radio station was cutting in and out...everytime that I got good reception he was talking about Peanut Butter no longer being a condiment, having graduated to become its own food. Seriously...apparently he talked about this for an hour and a half straight, unless he switched topics by coincidence when the reception was poor.

That is definitely the one thing I hate about him. He can get on some crazy tangents. Some are funny (I particularly love the ones about the "joy" that is being in a relationship) but most are not and he can stay on those crazy tangents for a long time.

Influential people who think solely in black and white terms are harmful to everything they discuss by encouraging polarization and impeding progress to the best or most correct solution. The world has enough of these already, influential or not. Reinforcing that style of thinking to anyone is D-U-M-B.

He picked Michigan to win nine games. I'm not sure how he could drone on about us being overrated if we lose less than Vegas' predicted number of seven. He would also be very wrong if this happened, so his prediction would be way off, therefore leaving him looking like an idiot. He would have been the one that overrated us. If we did win nine or ten games, then he could drone on about how he is so awesome for predicting Michigan to win nine games when nobody else was.

I love the dichotomy between this prediction thread and the previous Michigan State prediction thread. Cowherd rulez, CFN sucks. As if their analysis is any better, on either side, than me throwing at a dartboard when predicting the 2010 college football season.

Every time I see a new "[media person X] has predicted UM/ND/MSU to win [N] games" board topic, I just have to click it. I don't know why. I already know how the comments within read. I think Brian is screwing with us and just copies and pastes one of four boilerplate threads in for each of these topics, depending on team and predicted number of wins.

Cowherd annoys me because he insists on using Rush Limbaugh's cadence. (The angry voice, and then the long pauses that make it seem like he kind of expects his listeners -- invisible to him and, more importantly, un-miked -- to answer his rhetorical questions). And if Colin Coherd is Rush Limbaugh, Paul Myerberg, over at the geekily obsessive "Pre-Snap Read" blog, is Linda Werthheimer. Myerberg is running his annual team-a-day FBS preview. Today, Michigan clocks in at number 37.

This means two things, I think. The first, reading a bit between the lines, is that he's predicting around 7 wins. The second is that we're about 37 dog-days away from getting this season underway.

Myerberg gives plenty of love to MGoBlog, and has a far longer write-up than most previewers bother. Not that he says anything that you can't get here, but it's worth checking it out, nonetheless: http://www.presnapread.com/no-37-michigan/

I don't listen to Cowherd very much. In fact, I don't listen to ESPN radio much since Eric Kuselias stopped doing the afternoon drive (why, Eric? Why?!?!!?!?). But I did pick up one thing about Cowherd. He loves RR.

Say what you want about Cowherd but at least he forms an opinion and sticks with it. He doesn't flip flop on issues and tells it like it is. You don't have to agree with everything he says but I do respect someone that takes a stance on an issue and doesn't walk the fence.

I agree that Cowherd just likes to hear the sound of his own voice. He has 30 minutes of material and a 2 hour time to deliver it. He can be entertaining but he is such a USC homer that I just can't stand to listen to him when he starts talking about USC.

... with all these bullshit preseason predictions. Nobody knows anything more than the people on this board. We should not put any value in their predictions, because this board has proven time and again that MSM and most other people have no idea what they are talking about. I know we're hungry for news, but don't let random preseason predictions by people who get paid by the word affect your emotions -- good or bad.

who hated Lloyd Carr because he just kind of looked at the situation Michigan was in the last few years of that era and made all kinds of assumptions. Then he made fun of Michigan during the coaching search because of the Les Miles fiasco and because they don't pay their coaches well enough (?!) But he always seemed to like RichRod and like the hire and everything, and it seems like his attitude towards Michigan has changed since they hired RR.

Don't get me wrong, I can't stand the guy and he is just a talking-head with no brain, but still...

Honestly, they better be a 9-win team, who in the world do we even play? 9 wins means we win one toss up game (PSU, Wisconsin) and lose to Iowa and Ohio State. When you look at the schedule, an 8 win year should be considered a dissapointment.

While I am also predicting a 9 win season, I don't think you can look at this team, how young it is and how inexperienced our secondary is and say that an 8 win season is a disappointment. Remember, 8-4 was a standard back in the 90s when we had a shit ton more experience and NFL potential.

I think 7-5 is the baseline. Below that I would be incredibly disappointed and expect Rodriguez gone. 8 wins is a good season and 9 is excellent.

Also, I would switch Wisconsin and Iowa. I think Wisconsin is going to smack us and we are going to beat Iowa. That will be the bummer of the season I think. We'll get to Wisconsin 9-1 and lose our last 2 and feel worse about the season because of the taste at the end. Hopefully we win our bowl game.

Outside of Ohio State, Penn State, Iowa, and Wisconsin, there is very little competition on this schedule. Notre Dame is the only team not listed above that has the ability to really hurt us through our secondary. I consider just beating the teams you're supposed to and not gritting out a toss up game a dissapointment. With what we return on offense I'd be incredibly dissapointed with a loss to someone other than the big four.

But UConn, ND, Iowa, MSU and Penn State are all toss ups IMHE. I believe Wisconsin and OSU are all but unwinnable. I am basing this off of how we played these teams last year, home field advantage and what each team lost over the offseason. The only games I feel 100% confident about are UMass, BGSU and Illinois. Hell, we almost lost to IU last year in Ann Arbor and we did lose to Purdue last year in Ann Arbor as well.

So I am expecting us to win the easy ones, beat who we should beat (IU, Purdue) and nearly sweep our tossups. That sounds pretty good to me. If we did split the tossups we would be 7-5.

I've always enjoyed Cowherd for what he is, and I always have liked Rome too. You can't expect them to stay on the pulse of every local story when they have national radio programs. I take it for what it is and realize that they will be back to giving Michigan props when Michigan starts winning again this year.

...but he was the first national personality I saw rip WVU and their fans a new one for their stalking of RR. He may have even been the first to use the term "psycho-ex" in reference to WVU and their collective diva routine. So, apparently, he gets it right about Michigan and/or RR once in awhile.

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